What a day!

Today my laptop has been used during my university classes for the first time. It’s not the lightest laptop, actually my back hurts a little bit after carrying it with me all the time, sleep is broken, but once all is set-up and working making notes, correcting them and formatting is much easier than on paper, and it’s also much less mess on the desk. Moreover everyone seeing me makinig notes on a computer seems a bit amused and one guy sitting behind me during lectures on history of ancient philosophy asked me if it’s Ubuntu that I’m running, since he’s planning to install it himself. Cool, one more user towards the world domination :)

Apart from that I started attending Swedish classes. This shocked my parents and friends a little bit, as there is almost no use for swedish in philosophy, but well… I wouldn’t be myself if I always did the sensible thing. Anyway the pronounciation seems a little bit strange, but it’s really interesting and in some way beautiful. I’ve got to catch up a bit, but hopefully my father will borrow me one of his swedish friends to talk to ;). Should I succed in learning that I’ll know 3 foreign languages, that is English, French and Swedish + Ancient Greek, so that makes 4 languages total, apart from Polish.

-One, two, four…
-Three sir!
-Three! (Throws the Holy Hand Granade of Antioch)

And then I’ll abandon my philosophy studies and start working for UE.

 

Oh, and by the way, the entrance party for philosophy’s first year is today. Wish me luck as I’m not a good drinker, although I try to prove otherwise on every occasion. And it sometimes hurts!

LDAPed and Confused

LDAP is not something a man can just do – I learned that during my several attempts to set it up so it has actually any use. As early as december 2005 I thought about replacing my curent authentication system, which was a really hackish NIS instalation with something more elegant and less unsecure and irreliable. Installing and configuring LDAP daemon (SLAPD) itself wasn’t much more than just:

aptitude install slapd

But the stairs start right after that, at least if one isn’t very familiar with X.500, binding, DNs, et caetera. My work was stopped for some time since LAT (a nice GTK# app for managid LDAP directories) did some weird stuff with bind DN and base DN I gave and I wasn’t smart enough to just ignore base DN, which eventually worked. All the other LDAP management apps I knew decided to start crashing when I wanted to use them. Then I tried again, just to be defeated by my own stupidity: I tried everything on a wrong IP, that accidentaly had another LDAP daemon running. I was trying to just bind to a directory for few months and couldn’t make it. Yeah, I am sometimes really dumb.

But the bad times had to end. Yesterday I made a mistake – left out “base DN” field in LAT – and suddenly it all started working! Well, it hasn’t been put to any use yet as I have a lot to learn before I use LDAP for any serious task but I can’t say I’m not proud of my victory over my own dumbness :)

It’s not all that sweet yet. For example when I tried to store my Evolution contacts in my directory it spit out a wonderful and very meaningful message: “Another error”. To ass more fun there was not a trace of it in debug output nor anywhere in the logs. Only after some time I managed to find the reason: priviledges. I know nothing about privilidges in LDAP so I guess I’ll have some occupation for next week. Go away: Plato, Logics and Onthology – it’s IT time!

And now for something completely different

A man with 10 Audio CDs:

Since CDs are usually a little bit too expensive for me I buy them rarely, so each one of them is carefully chosen before I go to an Empik (Virgin or FNAC equivalent)or a second-hand shop. Here is a list of music that I surely didn’t regret buying:

1. Led Zeppelin I through IV – A real rock classic, a must-have. Not all songs are as great and breathtaking as the best known hits, but each album is great as a whole, bringing in a lot of ideas previously unknown in rock music. They are certainly the most important albums in my collection.
2. “Symbolic” by Death – Well, yes, I know that the band’s name is sufficent to make people run, but this one is no ordinary death metal. It’s more like technical metal, played mainly to show Gene Hoglan drumming skills and Chuck Schuldiner guitar solos. Nevertheless this album is really great, while being loud and quite fast it isn’t nearly as brutal as other metal works I used to listen. Buying this CD made me forget about other death metal bands for a long time.
3. Beethoven’s IX Symphony performed by Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by von Karajan – My entry to the world of classical music. Karajan is indeed a great conductor, and I haven’t found any other performane of IX Symphony that could match his.
4. “The Doors” The Doors – Face it, Jim Morrison couldn’t sing really well, nor any of his band mates could play exceptionaly well, but they managed to create music that takes control of a listener. Along with other Doors albums it’s a classic, something that any rock fan must hear. Especially if you are interested in psychedelic music.
5. “Are You Experienced” Jimi Hendrix – Hendrix could play and sing really well and it shows. While it’s not as diverse as Axis – Bold as Love or Electric Ladyland, there are many songs there that you just can’t miss. Purple Haze, Foxy Lady, Red House, Manic Depression are among them.
6. “Warrior on The Edge of Time” Hawkwind – I really doubt you know this one. Psychedelic rock taken sometimes to extreme, with many fresh ideas and weird instruments. Not everyone will like it, but it’s worth a listen and there’s a chance you’ll fall in love in it.
7. “Blood” Vader – Back to death metal. This one was my first DM album. It’s short, quick and loud. Just what you’d expect from this genre.
8. J.S. Bach works by Ton Koopman – Small selection of Bach works including the ones that are most edible by a typical listener. Good performance, especially that of Toccata and Fugue in D-moll.
9. “In The Court of Crimson King ” “In The Wake Of Poseidon”King Crimson – These are two good progressive rock albums. They are very moody, soothing, yet intriguing. Both are diverse, and both infuenced creation of other genres (e.g. 21st Century Schizoid Man => Hard rock)
10. “The Wall” Pink Floyd – I think I don’t have to explain this one :)

That would be it. There are many other albums I listen, but neither of them have influenced me as much as these. I reall recomend them if you are in mood to extend your musical taste.

Cheers!

The End

Well, not quite, but I’m listening to The Doors at the moment of writing this post, and just couldn’t resist it. Anyway, I should introduce myself. My name is Andrzej (Andrew) Mendel, a 19 year old luteran and philosophy student from Warsaw, Poland. This blog however, isn’t going to concentrate on matters of religion, or my studies, as I’m also interested in other subjects, which will hopefully bring more visitors here, such as IT, politics et caetera. Perhaps some literature, mainly that of XIX century.

I am fully aware that this blog will be no more than “Just another WordPress.com weblog”, as the subtitle I decided not to change mentions, for some time, but I still hope that someone will show some interest in what I write. Well, enough of this disclaimer, let’s put something of a real value here.